Review: Dwelling in the Margins: Art Publishing in Aotearoa

“This book was made to the background beat of politics and protests; produced during multiple lockdowns, where the line between home and work was blurred and then erased. It was designed in sync with naptimes, to the rhythm of laundry loads …”

A lockdown project for Auckland-based graphic designer and GLORIA Books publisher Katie Kerr, this collection brings together writing and essays from 30 New Zealand small press practitioners exploring small press art publishing in Aotearoa. For such a compact volume, the book packs a punch and is loaded with endlessly fascinating and insightful writing. Seeking interesting, radical and effective alternatives to commercial practices, art publishing in Aotearoa has a rich history, allowing artists autonomy and a platform for their own or a community’s work. This publication asks what happens when the artist has ownership over the entire publishing process - the artist as publisher, editor, designer, distributor and marketer.

The book covers a considerable representation of small local presses; you could be forgiven for being surprised that there are so many in Aotearoa. And yet this isn’t even all of them - notable omissions from the publication due to whatever circumstances include Clouds, Small Bore Books and split/fountain. Each contributor was asked to write a short piece about art publishing and these pieces span historical biographies, recollections, critical commentary, manifestos and speculations on the future of art publishing in Aotearoa. These pieces evaluate the past, document the present and consider the future.

Dear Reader by Louise Menzies presents correspondence found in the Hocken Library archive relating to the publishing of a small, quiet and beguiling 1979 children’s book by artist Joanna Margaret Paul The Lone Goose. Published by John McIndoe and distributed by Reed, Menzies describes the book as a simple object, staple-bound and trimmed to A4, each page composed of playful, open lines and shapes which follows the story of a family of geese.

“It was met with ridicule from parts of the publishing industry at the time,” she writes.

The correspondence is a fascinating insight into the publishing and distribution process, and the snobbery towards the book and the attempts to get it distributed is at times exasperating to read. Nobody seems to understand the book or want to stock it. Ironically, the book was obviously ahead of its time and wouldn’t look out of place alongside children’s books published today. Menzies happily concludes her piece with a note that there are plans to reprint The Lone Goose.

Among the primarily Pākehā line-up of this book is a piece by Bridget Reweti and Matariki Williams from the excellent ATE Journal of Māori Art. Kaupapa Toi: Making a Journal of Māori Art states the aims of the journal - to publish writing about Māori art and to “develop a discourse that engages with mātauranga Māori as an integral aspect of Māori art.”

Reweti and Williams write that despite the growing number of Māori artists, there is a distinct lack of writing about Māori art by Māori writers and critics, therefore considerable commentary from non-Māori perspectives. They write about working with the practical support and guidance of progressive publishers like Bridget Williams Books to produce a journal that gives critique from Māori perspectives.

Books, Records, Books Etc by Luke Wood of Ilam Press surveys his work publishing Cheap Thrills, the great but short-lived journal of music criticism, and esoteric motorcycle fanzine Head Full of Snakes and the “bummer” of launching that zine at an art fair where it didn’t quite fit in (a publication not to be sniffed at though - it won the Design Industry of New Zealand’s Best Design Awards in 2012 and also received an Australian Design Biennale Award).

In his irreverent piece which cycles between cynical, optimistic and thoughtful, Wood ponders art fairs and their participants. He negotiates the tension of wondering if these fairs are somewhat self-serving and not public-oriented, yet still wanting [the public] to be involved. Interested in the politics and possibilities of short run production, Wood applied these small press methodologies to establish the Ilam Press Records imprint, producing lathe cut records - a format he celebrated with his excellent A Short Run: A Selection of New Zealand Lathe-Cut Records exhibition at Auckland’s Objectspace and Lower Hutt’s The Dowse.

Helmed by Chris Holdaway, Auckland’s Compound Press is currently publishing some of the most interesting poetry in Aotearoa. In his wryly titled The Future is Material, Holdaway notes that marginal DIY publishing is a kind of rite of passage for publishing poetry. Notably, Compound’s I Am a Human Being by Jackson Nieuwland is longlisted for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Mary and Peter Biggs Poetry Award.

There may be a preconceived idea that while they initially had their roots in making publications democratically available, that small presses are elite. Dominic Hoey and Samuel Walsh’s Dead Bird Books, who aim to publish “political, subversive and at times provocative books,” prove otherwise. Their contribution We’ll Do It Without Them is a list of lists and a series of emails which itemises the endless mundane and exhausting admin and unseen (and unpaid) labour that goes into DIY work ethics. And what is crucial to the DIY approach? Do something now, don’t wait to be asked. Applying for funding, coming up with a name for their press (“Kyl, kill your landlord, is that too intense?”), distribution rejection emails - they lay it all out.

“Bummer about the distro but at the same time they can get fucked. We’ll do it without them.” And they have. What’s more, Dead Bird’s National Anthem by Mohamed Hassan is also on the longlist for the Mary and Peter Biggs Poetry Award.

I’ve long admired the work Kerr does with GLORIA Books. Its publications are consistently constructed with such care and craft with thoughtful and beautiful design and typography. Kerr’s own contribution to this book Community, Spiral Bound is a lovely piece which highlights 1960s and 1970s community cookbooks as an early example of almost zine-like DIY grassroots publishing in Aotearoa. Kerr suggests they could be a model for future publishing here. Produced by various local community groups usually for fundraising purposes, these modest pamphlet-like or spiral-bound cookbooks are a far cry from the lavish, glossy celebrity cookbooks you find in bookshops today.

Kerr points out that these community-focused publications were often the work of groups of women who worked together to source contributions, find sponsorship, manage production and distribution - all for the good of the greater community. She commends the collaborative and distinctly feminist approach to producing community cookbooks.

Every aspect of Dwelling in the Margins is a triumph. The writing is from a variety of angles, voices and experience which is illuminating. The production itself is gorgeous from the zing of the canary yellow cover, the elegant typography and layout and beautiful photographic spreads. “In uneasy times, I do believe art publishing can provide some optimism,” writes Kerr. While the book offers us an insight into a niche branch of publishing as an alternative to commercial publishing, there is also much inspiration for imagined futures and possibilities. I would love to see mainstream publishers in Aotearoa embrace some of these elegant design choices and production values in commercial publishing.

Dwelling in the Margins features contributions from Alan Deare, Alice Connew, Anita Tótha, Balamohan Shingade, Bridget Reweti, Bruce Connew, Catherine Griffiths, Chloe Geoghegan, Chris Holdaway, Dominic Hoey, Ella Sutherland, Erena Shingade, Gabi Lardies, Harry Culy, Haruhiko Sameshima, Imogen Taylor, Jonty Valentine, Judy Darragh, Katie Kerr, Lizzie Boon, Louise Menzies, Luke Wood, Matariki Williams, Matthew Galloway, Melinda Johnston, Samuel Walsh, Sarah Maxey, Simon Gennard, Sophie Davis, Sophie Rzepecky and Virginia Woods-Jack.

Reviewed by Kiran Dass